October 21, 2005

YOU GOTTA HAVE (OR BORROW) FAITH

In the early 1990s, before CBGB's had become a football in a grudge match between two equally useless nostalgia camps, the club booked bands of some interest. One was Th' Faith Healers. Though the best two shows of the time were likely Come and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, the most surprising came from th' Healers (possibly opening for Come, though I can't be sure). The Healers' closing song, which was approximately twenty minutes long, was the direct inspiration for Ui's song "Johnny" (which was looped, without permission or recompense, for VH1's Fashion Week runway segment in 1995--"sue us," they said, charmingly).